ICOS-Spain stations

A national network of atmospheric, ocean and ecosystem observation platforms contributing to ICOS.

The ICOS-Spain network consists of seven stations distributed across the three ICOS domains: Atmosphere, Ocean and Ecosystem. Together, they extend ICOS coverage to southwestern Europe and the subtropical North Atlantic, spanning a wide range of environments representative of the region.

The Atmosphere domain includes three sites. The Izaña station is hosted at the centennial high-mountain Izaña Observatory in Tenerife, which has been a key global reference site for free-tropospheric measurements for decades. El Arenosillo station, in Huelva, provides observations from one of the southernmost areas of continental Europe, facing the Atlantic. CIBA station, in Valladolid, represents a continental inland environment in central Spain.

In the Ocean domain, CanOA is a mobile station on a merchant vessel that regularly operates between Gran Canaria and Barcelona, collecting data across the subtropical North Atlantic and the western Mediterranean. ESTOC is a fixed site north of Gran Canaria with decades of continuous ocean measurements in the subtropical North Atlantic.

The Ecosystem domain is represented by Majadas de Tiétar, in Cáceres, which monitors a Mediterranean oak savanna, or dehesa, a characteristic ecosystem of the Iberian Peninsula, and by Aguamarga, in Almería, which monitors a semi-arid espartal ecosystem located in one of Europe’s climatic extremes.

In addition, Barcelona hosts an urban greenhouse gas monitoring network developed within the framework of the ICOS Cities project.